Deacon Jones

I did not invent the head slap. Of course, Rembrandt did not invent painting either. I perfected it.

If I played today, that would be the first thing I went for--your head. And it would be illegal. I'd get kicked out of the game, I'd get a $75,000 fine, and I'd have a heart attack right after that.

Pro Football Weekly did a year study in judging the best player on each team in the National Football League, and I won out over all them suckers with the Rams.

God blessed me with something that gave me an edge: speed and quickness. I could outrun daylight.

When I walk into the room, they know it. That's the way I carry myself, and you can call me out anytime if you don't like it.

I stay in good shape, and then I signed a long-term contract with Smith & Wesson, just in case the conditioning don't work.

We'll always have a problem here (1) as long as the politicians are involved. You can't get a stadium built in a state where there is nothing but money. You can go into Beverly Hills and pick up three guys in a minute who could build a stadium.

When I came to the Rams, they had a sheet that you fill out. All the pertinent information. They had a slot for nickname. I had already found out from a guy I flew in with that they had about 30 or 40 David Joneses in the L.A. phone book. So, I immediately went and checked the L.A. phone book at the airport, and sure enough, it was.

The Rams had a fullback named Deacon Dan Towler. Deacon went well with Jones, and I needed something quick. So, I put it on the application and the press took it from there. I nicknamed myself. But I did it to fill that spot up.

I came from a segregated society. The first white guy I played against was in the pros.

You got to remember, it was the `60s. I had participated in lunch-counter demonstrations at that point. I'd already had the water-hose treatment, been put in jail, kicked out of school. I'd been through all that in the '50s in South Carolina and Mississippi. So, I was already part of the movement. Hate had already built up inside of me.

We didn't have black and white roommates until 1967. Most people don't know that. We walked out of a hotel in New York because we had different kinds of rooms.

My daddy did everything he could to earn money for his eight kids.

My momma made me go to church up until the time I left home. Even when I went back to visit, if I'm there on Sunday, I had to go to church. So, I start living in a hotel in 1962 when I went back home.

Where do we get the players from? Families. Families are now being reared with a single parent.

That's why we have so many problems with these young kids like Randy Moss,who to me ought to be put in jail somewhere. He's a lousy boy. He's a lousy man. He's a lousy person.

You can't discipline your kid no more. Because he could threaten to call the police or get his lawyer that you have to pay for, not him.

I was a 14th-round draft pick. I was down there with the last player taken, but to me it was like being a No. 1 because now white people were paying attention to me. That was big in those days.

To go from a 14th-round pick in a segregated environment to the Hall of Fame, can't be nothing that tops that.